Humans' sufferings

"Seeing the pain in someone's eyes,

or hearing the sadness,

or worry in his or her voice,

how can we not care?

how can we not be kind?"

This is a short qoutation that I have taken out from Buddhism "Path to Peace". However, this is an utopian idea because loving-kindness is no longer commonly found in today's competitive world. Too many of us are indifferent towards the sufferings of others. We no longer care and be kind to those who are less fortunate.

Take a look on those who are from the third world countries, and how they have struggled so hard just to survive. The poor at those places are always in hunger and coldness, and the statistic even shows that every five minutes a child dies as a result of famine. A lot more are without shelters. In fact, the rich and powerful oppress the poor and powerless in a lot of countries. The poor have no says over a lot of matters. To be realistic, there seem no hope for us to close up the social and economical gap because nobody really cares and sympathises with the sufferings of others.

In fact, I personally feel that both poems W. H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts"and Lord Alfred Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" depict humankind's indifference towards the sufferings of others. In "Musee des Beaux Arts", even though Icarus is drowning, nobody really concerns with his life. The ploughman, shepherd and fishermen are oblivious to the tragedy of Icarus. We are just like the ploughman, shepherd and fishemen who are too engrossed in the day's routines -- we might "have heard the splash, the forsaken cry" but have somewhere else to go. Only those who are nearest to us like our families will moan over our deaths.

In "Break, Break, Break", life goes on as usual even a tragedy just happened. One's sufferings have no consequence to the others around him. Nobody will really bother whether you are dying or not. They mind only their own business, just like "the sailor lad sings in his boat on the bay" and "the stately ships go on to their haven under the hill" even though that is a hand disappearing!There are no helping hands!

By: Chuah Kar Wooi (134185)

B.Ed. (TESL)

Group 21